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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s wife, Ri Sol-ju, appeared on state media for the first time in nearly five months on February 1, 2022. The couple attended an art performance that was held in the capital Pyongyang’s Mansudae Art Theatre to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday. Also sighted in public for the first t…
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Hong Kong Chief Justice Andrew Cheung has defended the length of time it has taken the judiciary to hold trials for 47 opposition activists arrested in January 2021. Speaking after attending the opening of the new judicial year on January 24, 2022, Cheung said the courts should not sidestep necessary procedural step…
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Indonesia’s parliament approved a bill on January 18, 2022, to relocate its capital city from Jakarta to a forested area in East Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. The new law provides a legal framework for President Joko Widodo's US$32 billion megaproject. More than 2,500 sq km of jungle will be cleared f…
A Japanese woman gave her newborn up for adoption after discovering that the child’s biological father, a sperm donor, lied about his identity. The 30-year-old woman slept with the man up to 10 times after he claimed to be a Japanese graduate of an elite national university. In reality, he was a Chinese national who…
Tennis superstar Novak Djokovic flew out of Australia bound for Dubai on January 16, 2022, following a unanimous court ruling rejecting his appeal against the cancellation of his visa, shattering the Serbian’s hopes of defending his title and a record 21st grand slam win at the Australian Open.
Novak Djokovic has lost his bid to remain in Australia on January 16, 2022, after the Federal Court upheld the government’s decision to cancel the tennis star’s visa.
Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic was seen training at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne Park, Australia on January 11, 2022. The previous day the world No 1 player was released from detention after a court overturned his visa cancellation. Djokovic’s visa to enter Australia was cancelled following questions over th…
Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to another four years in jail on January 10, 2022. The 76-year-old was found guilty by a junta court of two charges related to illegally importing and owning walkie-talkies and one of breaking coronavirus rules. The sentence adds to a two-year jail term…
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Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic has been released from detention and his visa cancellation overturned by a Melbourne court on January 10, 2022. Djokovic was appealing against being barred from entering Australia because he did not get vaccinated. The tennis world No 1 claimed he was granted a medical exemption be…
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As the world enters a third year of the global Covid-19 pandemic, North Korea claims to remain free of the coronavirus because of its strict border closures and travel restrictions that have reportedly worsened food shortages. As the reclusive state rang in the new year, supreme leader Kim Jong-un called on North Ko…
Sultana Begum says she has records of her marriage at the age of 14 into the family of India’s once-powerful Mughal empire. Her late husband, Mirza Mohammad Bedar Bakht, is purported to be the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar. When her husband died in 1980, Begum was left penniless and struggling to get by in a …
The 23rd Harbin Ice and Snow World started trial operations on December 25, 2021, in China’s northeastern province of Heilongjiang, allowing the first visitors inside the 82 hectare (202 acre) theme park to see its huge ice and snow sculptures. Part of the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, this year…
Two more monuments commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown were removed from two university campuses in Hong Kong in the early hours of Christmas Eve. After removing the Goddess of Democracy, the Chinese University of Hong Kong said its placement on campus had never been authorised, while Lingnan University cited…
At least two people were killed and two others were injured after an explosion inside an Indian court building on December 23, 2021. The blast in the city of Ludhiana, in the north Indian state of Punjab, reportedly damaged the walls of a bathroom and shattered glass in other rooms. Local police are investigating th…
The Pillar of Shame sculpture at the University of Hong Kong was removed on the night of December 22, 2021. The artwork commemorates victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, when protesters demanded greater democracy and government transparency. The statue had been on loan to the Hong Kong Alliance in Supp…
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Hong Kong prosecutors have lost an appeal against a magistrate’s decision in September 2020 clearing media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying of intimidating a reporter in 2017. Lai was accused of verbally threatening the reporter during a 2017 Victoria Park vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown. On appeal, the…
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The Hong Kong YouTube channel Trial & Error has become all the rage in the Cantonese-speaking world with its offering of comedy skits, parodies, music videos and game shows. Founded by Hong Kong actor Neo Yau Hawk-sau, along with Hui Yin and So Chi-ho, the channel is famous for delivering shows using clever wordplay…
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New Zealand announced on December 9, 2021, that the legal smoking age will be increased by one year every year, starting in 2027. Currently, the legal age for purchasing cigarettes is 18. The result will mean that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally able to buy tobacco. The government will al…
Philippine journalist Maria Ressa arrived in the Norwegian capital Oslo on December 8, 2021, to collect her award for the Nobel Peace Prize. A prominent journalist and leading critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Ressa co-founded the online news platform Rappler, which challenged government policies, incl…
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American journalist Danny Fenster was freed from prison in Myanmar on November 15, 2021, and is on his way home. Fenster had been sentenced only three days earlier to 11 years of hard labour by a Myanmar court that found him guilty of breaching immigration law, unlawful association and encouraging dissent. Officials…
Darren Leung started running Westside Rifle and Pistol Range in New York City 20 some years ago and he is proud of it. “I believe we’re the last commercial range in Manhattan,” he said. Having served the New York metropolitan area for more than five decades, the business has catered to a variety of shooters. Leung h…
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China’s top Communist Party leaders are meeting in Beijing for the sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee, a key meeting ahead of an expected leadership shuffle at the 20th national congress in 2022. During past “sixth plenums”, the party has come up with major decisions, including the establishment of …
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Top Chinese basketball prospect Fanbo Zeng has returned to training with the NBA G League Ignite team having signed with them in October 2021. The 18-year-old from Harbin in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang had been suffering from a knee injury. With his return to the court, Zheng is making his ambitions cl…
Child marriage has been practised in Afghanistan for centuries, but war and worsening poverty linked to climate change are driving many families to resort to striking deals for their daughters’ hands at much earlier ages. Some farmers who have been forced from their homes admit they have had “no other choice” but to…
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A North Korean inmate was filmed escaping from a prison in northern China’s Jilin province. Zhu Xianjian, 39, was sentenced to 11 years and three months after committing a string of crimes, including crossing the country border illegally and stabbing a woman to steal cash and bank deposit books in 2013. When Zhu esc…
The first of more than 5,600 political prisoners detained by the ruling military junta during Myanmar’s anti-coup protests were released late on October 18, 2021. The move came after the junta’s top military official, Min Aung Hlaing, was snubbed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). The rejection w…
At least six people were killed in street violence that erupted in the Lebanese capital Beirut on October 14, 2021. It reportedly began when snipers on rooftops opened fire on protesters gathered to demand the removal of a judge investigating deadly blasts that rocked the city’s port in 2020. The protest was led by …
On October 14, 2021, five North Korean defectors living in Japan called on Kim Jong-un to appear before a Tokyo district court in a lawsuit over a 1959 Korean repatriation programme they liken to kidnapping. More than 90,000 ethnic Koreans, and their Japanese wives, were repatriated to North Korea as part of a Pyong…
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Philippine Vice-President Leni Robredo announced on October 7, 2021, that she will run for president in the 2022 election. Her announcement came just a day after Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, the son of the late Philippine dictator, entered the presidential race. In the last election in 2016, Marcos Jnr lost the …
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Former foreign minister Fumio Kishida was elected to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a run-off vote on September 29, 2021. His victory virtually ensures that Kishida will succeed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in the post since the LDP holds a majority in the country’s parliament. Kishida was on…
A brawl broke out on the floor of Taiwan's legislature on September 28, 2021, after opposition lawmakers interrupted an annual address by the chamber's head, Su Tseng-chang. While Su was delivering the speech on the government's performance, the lawmakers rushed to the podium, sparking a melee during which several p…
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was greeted by a hero’s welcome as she landed in the Chinese city of Shenzhen on September 25, 2021. The previous day her legal team had struck a deal with US prosecutors to end a high-profile fraud case that saw her detained in Canada for nearly three years. Her husba…
Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was welcomed back to China by a 100-strong crowd gathered on the tarmac in Shenzhen, her company’s base, on September 25, 2021. Meng had spent nearly three years under house arrest in Canada, where she fought a lengthy court battle against extradition to the US on fraud …
